Did you test any bikes today then, Jim ? If so, what were your thoughts ?
Yes Alex, we did but the tests were nothing like exhaustive and I'm loath to come to many conclusions but here are a few impressions.
We test rode the Agattu I8 HS Stepthru and the Sahel i360 Harmony Stepthru. I had previously expressed a preference for bikes with 28" wheels but they both had 26".
The location of the 50Cycles unit in Loughborough is such that whilst easy to find and park (Driving Test Centre appears to be co-located so plenty of 'L' plates manoeuvring in the car park) the only route nearby which had any hills involved at least initial departure using a busy and hazardous looking main road the my co rider refused at the first fence. That left a nice clear but very flat cycle path leading out in two directions but we tore up and down the part which led to the station a few hundred yards away after a while manoeuvring around the car park areas.
The i8 had the Nexus 8 speed hub (no Alfines yet) and unfortunately it was maladjusted so gear changing was largely an unpleasant experience accompanied by snatching pedals and crunching noises from the back end. That notwithstanding the rode well but have no idea what sort of turn of speed I managed as it doesn't come with any controller showing speed and the like. My impression was that it was a pleasant ride, or would be after the gears were adjusted and might be well suited to maybe fairly undemanding riding although I think the gearing is low enough to be of real use on hills. The transmission of electric power was very smooth indeed but thinking back now even at fullish tilt in 8th gear I wasn't aware of hitting 'the wall' so either I wasn't going fast enough (gearing maybe a bit low for me?) or the run off of power was so smooth that I just didn't notice it.
The i360 Harmony comes, of course, with the NuVinci Harmony hub and this has a controller fitted on the bars which indicates speed, battery usage, power setting and so on, in addition to the Nuvinci controller which the rider can toggle, via a co-located button, between cadence rate and a sort of manual gear selector albeit one which is, in theory at least, infinitely variable.
In the mode where the rider selects their favoured cadence rate you just peddle away and the bike changes gear according to the conditions in order to maintain the selected cadence rate. In that mode the bike is a real 'dawdle' to ride and I have to admit that I immediately felt at home just cycling and not having to think at all about changing gear.
The bike did feel as if had effective gear ratio wider than the Nexus 8 but I slipped up in not trying it in manual gear selection mode and going for the highest ratio to see what that produced. The best speed I managed was 20 mph downwind and 18 mph the other way. I have no idea what pressures the tyres were at although the battery was over half charge. I was aware of the power being off at 20 mph but my perception was that the effort required to maintain speed was no or little different to a normally geared bike.
If I was being held at gunpoint and being forced to buy a bike and choice was limited to one of those two I would pick the Sahel i360 Harmony without hesitation. The experience at 50C was about as far removed as you get from being held at gunpoint however, and that's both good news and bad news.
The bike and transmission were very quiet obviously more so that the Nexus 8 even without the latter's crunching gears. The ride was very comfortable on the Big Apple tyres and we both agreed that it was easily the more comfortable of the bikes to ride even though it does not have suspension forks like the I8 Nexus.
If I was being held at gunpoint and being forced to buy a bike and choice was limited to one of those two I would pick the Sahel i360 Harmony without hesitation. The experience at 50C was about as far removed as you get from being held at gunpoint however, and that's both good news and bad news.
When we'd finished the ride and the two bikes were parked up outside the premises I stood and looked at them (and had to remind my other half that we'd just £4,300 worth of bikes sitting outside).... (
Wot? How much...and so on...). When I was looking at them my own personal view was that I wasn't looking at that sort of value. It was only this morning lying in bed that it dawned (pun almost intended) on me what was bugging me so much about them and it's that they kinda look like kids' bikes and even when riding them they don't seem to have enough 'presence' for you take them seriously.
You might think that's a funny thing to say but unfortunately, for me that's my overriding feeling.
We then drove over to Cambridge to have a look at the closest, to us, examples of Woosh Bikes as I've been intrigued by those, especially the crank drive Models. We hadn't phoned or booked beforehand although Hatti in Southend had told me that they had demo bikes....we got a friendly and informative welcome from Robert and his colleagues.
We tried the Zephyr crank drive folder (the Sirocco CD I'd hoped to try had been sold) and standard hub drive Santana stepthru - it's the forthcoming CD version of that that I was really interested in.
I'm going to cut this short as my two typing fingers are hurting already but suffice to say at the moment that I was impressed with the overall quality of these bikes, the standard Santana was adequately powered (battery was a bit low also) and very satisfactory and comfortable to ride. The little Zephyr folder with the Crank Drive was clearly in a higher league and although I wouldn't buy a folder it gave a reasonable insight into what Woosh's full size CD bikes might be capable of.
There is only one reason why I didn't come home and immediately reserve two Santana CDs and that's the absence of a torque sensor. The only sensor is a crank speed sensor which detects that the rider is pedalling and then supplies power. The power is applied smoothly but does obviously vary according to what gear you have selected and it seems possible to be in a high enough gear with low cadence for the sensor to think your not pedalling (we were in a country park and not doing a lot of speeding) - and of course the bike will not know how much effort the rider is transmitting to the pedals and cannot therefore react to that.
That having been said I think these bikes are good quality and very good value. In my case I feel thay may have spoiled the ship for the happorth (dunno how you spell that) of tar that the cost of installing torque sensors may have added. I know they are not that cheap but I believe this bike would appeal to a lot more people even at a higher price, if it had that.
The CD bikes come with a controller which looks exactly the same as the ones fitted to the Kalkhoff Sahel i360 Harmony by the way although the Woosh bikes have the Chinese Manufacturers name on them, which matters not as the whole bike is unashamed good Chinese quality (unless they're buying their parts from Germany now).
Footnote - interesting to read StuntManBob's account of his Nuvinci experience - certainly goes to show the value of getting the gearing right but glad his overall impression is also favourable.
JimB
